President Donald Trump during the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of his second presidential term, in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Tuesday marks the first anniversary of Donald Trump's second inauguration, and according to an analysis from The Guardian of his "key pledges," there is one area where he has "gone too far" for voters, while others also continue to drag him down.
Among the pledges analyzed after a year of Trump's second presidency was his pledge to crack down harder than ever before on immigration and carry out an agenda of mass deportations. While noting that "no issue has been more divisive in Trump’s first year," the Guardian also conceded that it is one of the few issues where he tends to have a positive, if dwindling, approval rating.
"If the only question before the body politic were immigration, Donald Trump would be close to a 50% job approval rating because that’s what the polls suggest," Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center think tank, told the outlet.
Despite that overall positivity, the harsh and overwhelming nature of Trump's immigration enforcement agenda is increasingly proving to be too much for voters to stomach, with waves of ICE agents being deployed into major cities, reportedly stopping anyone who is not white and demanding proof of citizenship, instead of targeting criminals exclusively, as Trump once promised.
The recent ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota has also proven to be an inflection point for many, prompting renewed waves of protest.
“We have seen them round up anyone who’s brown that they can find, unleash a mass law enforcement entity that has unlimited power and authority to use as much force as possible to intimidate American citizens and, in some cases, take their life from them," Kurt Bardella, a former GOP congressional aide turned anti-Trump Democratic commentator, explained to The Guardian.
"The promise of, I’m going after the worst of the worst of the worst is not what we’ve seen. Poll after poll shows the American people do not approve of the ways in which the Trump administration has pursued immigration enforcement. They think he’s gone too far.”
The economy is another issue dragging Trump down, according to The Guardian. While he pledged to tackle affordability and lower prices during his inauguration, these days he has a tendency to "undercut that effort" with claims that prices have come down significantly, which they have not, and that "affordability" is a scam against him perpetuated by Democrats.
Only 36 percent of voters now approve of his economic performance, with many also believing that he does not care about the issue.
Trump has also undercut his pledge to "bring back free speech to America" with support for efforts to retaliate against speech he and his supporters disapprove of. This issue was most visible after ABC temporarily suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after he made comments about Charlie Kirk that some on the right disliked, prompting FCC chair Brendan Carr to call for his termination. Beyond that, the president also frequently attacks negative press coverage of his administration, suggesting coverage that is not sufficiently positive ought to be illegal and threatening to revoke network licenses.
